Sixteen years ago, working as a post-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the group of professor Mildred Dresselhaus, the Brazilian physicist Ado Jorio de Vasconcelos headed a study that would produce the first successful result of the application of Optics, more precisely Raman spectroscopy, in the individual characterization of carbon nanotubes – keeping in mind that nanotube´s walls are just one atom thick, with diameters typically about one nanometer. In the MIT website, the page of Professor Mildred, who has been studying carbon nanostructures at MIT for more than 50 years, reinforces the importance of the work she has carried out with Jorio: 5 of the 6 publications selected by the emeritus professor are co-authored by Jorio.

When Ado Jorio began his postdoc he was 28 years old and had just finished his doctorate in Physics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). His thesis was on phase transitions in incommensurate systems, conducted under the guidance of Professor Marcos Assunção Pimenta. Prior to that, he earned his bachelor’s degree in Physics, also from UFMG, after studying Electrical Engineering for three years.

After the postdoc at MIT, Jorio returned to UFMG and was later accepted as associate professor of the university in 2002 via a public selection procedure. From 2007 to 2009 he held a position at the Brazilian National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (Inmetro) to develop nanometrology-related activities. In 2010, he became full professor of UFMG and that same year took over the direction of the Coordination of Transfer and Innovation of the University until 2012. In 2013 he was at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) as a visiting professor, carrying out teaching and research activities. In August 2016 he became Dean for Research of UFMG.

Since 2002, Jorio has expanded the subject of his post-doctoral work. He has conducted research in optics and the development of scientific instrumentation, namely the study of carbon nanostructures with various applications. An example of this diversity is a study in which Jorio participates, in which nanotechnology field techniques are used to understand details of the composition of the “Indian black earth”, a highly fertile soil with carbon sequestration potential, which is found in places formerly inhabited by Indians in the Brazilian Amazon.

Jorio holds one of the highest H-index among scientists in Brazil: 74, according to Google Scholar. He is also one of the most cited researchers in the world, evidenced by the inclusion of his name in the latest Thomson Reuters international list, which tabulated 1% of the most frequently cited papers in each knowledge area among all the indexed scientific articles between 2003 and 2013. Jorio is the author of over 180 scientific articles and 20 books or book chapters, and 8 patent applications. According to Google Scholar, his publications combine more than 30,000 citations.

His contributions have received numerous acknowledgments from prestigious institutions, such as the Somiya Award from the International Union of Materials Research Societies in 2009; the ICTP Prize of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in 2011, and the Georg Forster Research Award by the Humboldt Foundation in 2015, among many other national and international awards.

In the XV Brazil-MRS (SBPMat) Meeting, Ado Jorio will deliver a plenary lecture on a topic in which he is one of the world’s leading experts, the use of Raman spectroscopy to study carbon nanostructures. The Brazilian scientist will talk about how the technique evolved until reaching the nanoscale. He also promises to reveal some tactics that allow using light, whose wavelength is at least hundreds of nanometers, as a probe to investigate structures of only few nanometers.

See our interview with this member of the Brazilian research community in Materials and plenary speaker at our annual event.

SBPMat Newsletter: – Tell us what led you to become a scientist and work in the Materials area.

Ado Jorio: – It was a winding path! I entered university to study electrical engineering. Back then I played in a progressive rock band, so I looked for scientific research in the area of music. I was told to talk to a teacher at the physics department who enjoyed music, studied acoustics and materials. That’s how my career began and which ended up in materials science.

SBPMat Newsletter: – In your own words, what are your main contributions to the Materials area.

Ado Jorio: – I would say there are two main contributions. The first is in the area of carbon nanotubes, I have shown that optics could be brought to the level of individual nanotubes. This gave way to a very broad research field because there are various types of nanotubes, depending on their diameter and chirality. Before this work, people were studying nanotubes. After this work, people began to study specific types of nanotubes. It would be equivalent to saying that researchers studying the atom then realized that there are different types of atoms. The article that was the linchpin of this discovery was the [PRL86, 1118 (2001)]. The second contribution was the advancement of optics to study carbon nanostructures more broadly. I worked on several fronts, from scientific instrumentation for optical measurements below the diffraction limit, to the study and characterization of defects, approaching materials of interest in soil science, biotechnology and biomedicine. Some key references are the books “Raman Spectroscopy in Graphene Related Systems” and “Bioengineering Applications of Carbon Nanostructures”.

SBPMat Newsletter: – We always invite the interviewee to leave a message for the readers who are beginning their scientific careers. Many of these readers would like to one day achieve an H index like yours. What do you say to them?

Ado Jorio: – Make a big effort to attend conferences and make great presentations, always! Science is a debate and you have to be heard. Never repeat the same presentation. Each public requires a specific focus. Of course this advice depends on funding, but since the beginning of my career I have always spent my own money to fund my travels, and I still do this.

SBPMat Newsletter: – Leave a message or invitation to your plenary lecture for the readers who will participate in the XV Brazil-MRS (SBPMat) Meeting.

Ado Jorio: – After all of the above, and since the title and abstract are available, I can only offer my thanks to those who will honor me with their presence. It will be an honor to have these colleagues in the auditorium.